What if the thing standing between you and a completely new life wasn't your effort, your willpower, or your track record, but simply a gift you hadn't yet received? That's exactly what the Apostle Paul wants us to understand in one of the most powerful passages in all of Scripture.

What if the most important thing about the church could be summed up in a single sentence? Not a short, punchy sentence, but a breathless, 200-word, zero-punctuation run-on sentence that would make your high school English teacher reach for a red pen? That's exactly what the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter one, and what he couldn't stop saying just might change the way you see the church and yourself.

"Tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition..." Sound familiar? If those lyrics from the late, great Dolly Parton describe your average weekday, you're not alone. As Dolly herself put it, "it's enough to drive you crazy if you let it." So how do we avoid letting work drive us crazy? The answer might be older than you think.

Ben Folds' song "Fred Jones, Part 2" paints a heartbreaking picture: Fred sits alone at his desk in the dark after 25 years of working at a newspaper. There was no party, no songs, just a man clearing out his things and wondering if any of it really mattered. "And I'm sorry, Mr. Jones. It's time." Fred's story, his struggle with finding significance in a company and career to which he had devoted his life, is a story of heartbreak that resonates deeply. We all want to find meaning and purpose in our work. But more often than not, our work might feel more like Fred's tragic story.